


Not A Plant, Doesn't Grow

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-29 21:08:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20088796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "Jack is a child, barely 14, if that, though I don’t mind a little younger (like 12–he was born 300 years ago, children looked and behaved older at younger ages back then, but I just want a young Jack)Bunny finds out Jack is a child long before he is chosen for a guardian. He ends up adopting him, and all their fights are mostly a case of Jack pushing the boundrys and testing Bunny’s love for him.The other Guardians are bemused by Bunny and his new foster son.When Pitch returns he views Jack as a way to worm his way into the Guardians to destroy them. But he underestimates just how far Bunny will go to ensure that a child, his child no less is unharmed.Jack is also not going to be used to hurt Bunny and his aunt and uncles.Alterntively, just some mini fics on Bunny acting like Jacks father would be adorable!"Bunny cares for a Jack who’s about 12-13, and when Jack tries to show off for him, he realizes that there’s more to caring for Jack than he previously let himself understand.





	Not A Plant, Doesn't Grow

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 8/16/2016.

“All right, all right, what have we got…here?” Bunny’s voice trailed away as he looked into the small hollow that Jack had led him to. The grass and flowers that had filled it before were gone—well, not entirely gone. Bunny could see some of them, bruised and browning, under what had replaced them. And what had replaced them was ice. Ice that looked very, very much like the plants it now crushed. Leaf shapes and flower shapes were obvious, and even the ratios of different flower species to each other were correct.   
  
Bunny was pretty sure there would have been even more details for him to see if he had arrived just a little sooner. The Warren was too warm for ice, and even as he looked at the flowers, they were melting.  
  
“Ta-da!” Jack said, bouncing up and down on his toes. “I wanted to show you I had a good eye, and that I really do pay attention to all the flowers, and even though I can only do this little bit now, I think that with more practice I could do a lot more, and—”  
  
“Jack. Jack,” Bunny said. “Let me think and let me look for a minute.” He didn’t want to say anything to Jack that he regretted, because taking in Jack and protecting him had been a conscious choice he had made, and he didn’t want the instinct that shouted that ice in the Warren was a threat to color any part of his response to Jack. But what was he supposed to think about it? It was impressive, but… “I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said. “Why do this, in particular, to show me you have a good eye, and that you pay attention?”  
  
“Because I can’t work with actual flowers the way you do, but you still took me in, so that means I’ve got some kind of potential, and I wanted to show you what I’ve learned, so that whatever you think I can help you with, you’ll know I’m closer to being ready than before! And they’re pretty, aren’t they?”  
  
They’re unnatural, Bunny thought. They won’t grow. In an hour they’ll be gone. He sighed. He’d learned not to say those things. “They are pretty. It’s good to know you can do this. But—hey. Do you want to leave these here and go out in the world for a while?”  
  
Jack’s face lit up. “Even though it’s winter?”  
  
“Yeah,” Bunny said, glancing at the ice flowers again, “even though it’s winter.”  
  
Bunny watched Jack whoop and run through the heavy snowdrifts from within the confines of a heavily padded jacket that he’d never wear when anyone else could see him. Jack seemed so light in the wind, as if he was about to fly away. He didn’t leave footprints, but instead trails of pristine, glittering snow. Bunny sighed again. Winter seemed dangerous to him, but he couldn’t deny that it wasn’t dangerous at all to Jack. It was where Jack belonged, and for Bunny to try to protect him by keeping him in the Warren, well, that meant that he wasn’t seeing Jack for who he really was.  
  
Ice flowers were unnatural, but had Bunny ever even encouraged Jack to try to make snowflakes or snowdrifts? Jack had talents as deep as Bunny’s, and after several years, Bunny had to admit to himself that waiting for Jack to grow up to explore these talents wasn’t really something that would work out.  
  
When Jack calmed a little, he ran back over to Bunny. “Is it really bad out here?” he asked. “We can go back home, if it is.”  
  
“It’s not bad, it’s just weather,” Bunny said. “Just weather I don’t like. If you like it, you should probably spend more time out in it. Watching you just now, I might even say that you don’t even need me to stand out here supervising. It would be like you being worried that something in the Warren could hurt me.”  
  
Jack laughed. “That’s ridiculous! But—wait. Are you saying that you want to spend less time around me? Did I do something wrong? Fail you? There was something wrong with the flowers, wasn’t there?”  
  
“I’m not saying I want to spend less time with you,” Bunny said. “I didn’t take you in because I wanted you to be useful, I took you in because you seemed to need taking in. But the Warren itself tends to panic when there’s ice.” He tilted his head as he looked at Jack. “What you did shows talent, but we don’t have the same kind of powers,” he said. “What I’m trying to say is that I think I should be telling you to find out what those are, rather than waiting for the right time, because maybe the right time is never going to come.”  
  
Jack relaxed a little, but looked up at Bunny with an uncharacteristically serious expression. “I’d like to figure out who I am,” he said. “But that’s not all you’re saying. You’re saying you don’t really expect me to…to ever grow up. To get older at all.”  
  
“It’s been years since I found you, and you’re still the same,” Bunny said gently.  
  
“I feel like I always expected to grow up,” Jack said. “Even though all I can remember is being like I am now.” He frowned, and his shoulders slumped. “It’s not easy to be like this. I feel like…like there are ways of thinking I should be able to do, after being alive for so long, but I can’t. There are some things I want to think through, and figure out, but…I’m missing some tools, or something.”  
  
“I don’t know what to say,” Bunny said. “I’ve never met an immortal kid like you. But maybe it’s because I haven’t really known how to care for you that makes you feel like that. You need to start being yourself. I don’t know how much that’ll help, but it will probably help some. I just don’t want you to lose hope.”  
  
Jack stepped forward, and leaned against Bunny, who put his arm around his shoulders. “I won’t. Not when you’re around. No matter what, I’m so glad you found me.”  
  
“Me too, kid. Me too.”  
  
Well. Maybe he would end up spending a lot more time outside in winter. Bunny narrowed his eyes at the frozen landscape, and decided he’d have to start making a coat he wouldn’t mind being caught in.


End file.
